Online piracy causes larger losses than bank robberies, yet the FBI …

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The Songwriters Guild of America has a message for the government: start prosecuting file-sharers, both criminally and civilly, because file-sharing is much worse than bank robbery.

"There are numerous economic crimes of much lesser magnitude (such as bank robbery) that are routinely and fully investigated, for which law enforcement agencies such as the FBI have significant resources," complains the Guild (PDF). "By contrast, online copyright piracy dwarfs bank robbery in causing economic losses, yet the FBI has limited criminal investigative interest and no civil mandate whatsoever to pursue this devastating economic harm. This inequity must change."

The Guild demands that the Department of Justice make criminal prosecutions of "willful copyright infringement" a higher priority; right now, the issue is not classed as a "serious" crime.

"Unfortunately, this misguided attitude allows domestic and foreign pirates to decimate an industry—intellectual property—where the United States enjoys a true global competitive advantage," says the group.

In addition, the federal government should do whatever it takes to start bringing civil copyright lawsuits against online offenders, something that is currently up to the private sector. This would require a change to the law; something along these lines was considered in the PRO-IP Act, but was ultimately scrapped before passage.

The Guild contends that its members simply aren't able to "sue thousands of infringers in the Federal Courts"—but the government could. (And should.)

The suggestions were all directed at the new Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the White House, Victoria Espinel, whose position was created by the PRO-IP Act. Espinel is currently working on her legally mandated Joint Strategic Plan to bring all the forces of government to bear on counterfeiters, pirates, and trade secret thieves. She asked for public comment—and wow, is she getting it.

Still, the Songwriters Guild had nothing on the MPAA, RIAA, and other "creative community organizations," all of whom suggested to Espinel (PDF) that good ways to deal with online piracy include using:

Technologies to detect, monitor (and filter) traffic or specific files based on analysis of information such as protocols, file types, text description, metadata, file size and other “external” information;